Fangirls In Beleriand
by Shauna1
Summary: The tragicomedic adventure of a pair of self-inserts trapped in the heretofore unsoiled Beleriand - or, what happens to an unprotected plot continuum.
1. Chapter One

***   
  
Fangirls In Beleriand   
by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com)   
  
Summary: With the removal of the PPC, there's been a certain lack of nice, mean snarking. My attempt to make up for it. Feedback of all kinds appreciated.   
  
Disclaimers: All characters, unless indicated otherwise, are the property of the Tolkien estate. The Mary-Sues are mine, and that means I can torture them as much as I want.   
  
***   
  
Really, it had all been a bit of harmless fun. Her best friend's snotty older sister had tossed her a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and said nastily, "If you're not going to shut up about how hot Legolas is, why don't you try reading the book? He *is* in that, too, you know."   
  
Normally Mary tried to ignore Rae, but she couldn't pass up the chance to find out what other elf kingdoms besides Rivendell and Mirkwood there were in Middle Earth. She was planning on writing a fanfic where she and Legolas were betrothed. In it, she was going to be a unicorn-riding elven princess with magical powers, and she wanted to be authentic.   
  
After skimming through the pages, she finally found the name of another land of elves. It was in one of those long, boring poems that she usually skipped over (she also skipped over anything mentioning Gimli or containing words that were more than three syllables long). The Kingdom of Thingol. Mary wondered what a 'Thingol' was.   
  
Happy with her find, she closed the book. She didn't need it anymore - she already knew how it ended from watching the movie (eighteen times). She decided to walk over to her friend Sue's house, so she could return the book and maybe, with Sue's help, get started on that fanfic.   
  
"Is Sue home?" she asked Rae when the girl came to the door. Rae sighed when she saw who it was.   
  
"No, maybe in a half hour."   
  
Mary nodded. "I can wait. Hey, here's your book."   
  
Rae looked at her suspiciously. "You read it that quickly?"   
  
"Nah. It was kinda boring."   
  
Rae's expression changed from suspicion to sadness. "You know, you seemed so happy to have that book... I thought there was some hope for you."   
  
Mary shrugged. "Can I use Sue's computer?" She wanted to get started on her fanfic right away. Rae opened the door wide enough to let her in, then closed it on the back of her foot. Mary stumbled and almost fell. She started to complain to Rae, but the girl was already walking off, mumbling under her breath,  
  
"... boring... I'll show her boring... maybe if I sit down outside her door and moan, 'oh, Legolas is so handsome!' until she beats her head against the wall..."   
  
After rubbing her heel and sulking for a little while, Mary walked to Sue's room. She pulled up a chair to her friend's computer, opened up a word processing program. Biting her lip, she began to write.   
  
"In the Kingdom of Thingol, where many elves lived, their lived a beautiful Princess."   
  
Hmmm. What did she want to name herself? Laestariana, or maybe Lailatrieana. Her rule about three-syllable words didn't count for names. Smiling, Mary continued.   
  
"Thru the peacful meadows torwards the shining castle, danced the beautiful Princess L - "   
  
There was a knock at the door. Rae stuck her head in.   
  
"Sue just called, said she'd be home in fifteen minutes," Rae reported, her lip curling in disgust as she said her sister's name. The two girls didn't seem to know how they could be related. "Wait a sec - what are you doing?"  
  
"I," Mary said, brimming with pride, "am writing a fanfic."   
  
Rae was despondent. "I suppose I can't stop you. I mean, if Harpwire can't evade the law, how can I?"   
  
Mary looked at her oddly. "Um. Yeah."   
  
"Anyway, just... try to stay close to canon, okay?"   
  
"What? What do cannons have to do with anything?"   
  
Rae groaned. "It's useless. I'll let you know when Sue gets in." She headed towards the door, then paused, spying a pack of gum on the desktop. She leaned over to steal a piece, casually read the screen, and -   
  
"What are you *doing*?" Rae gasped in horror. "You're not - writing a self-insert - no! I won't let you."   
  
"What are you talking about?" Mary cried, throwing herself in front of her friend's computer. "It's just a little harmless fun!"   
  
"With the PPC gone, it isn't harmless anymore!" Rae cried. "And it was certainly never fun! At least not to read," she added, massaging her temples, and giving Mary the glare of a discriminating fangirl who's waded through way too many horrible fics. She feigned weakness until Mary relaxed, then she pushed the girl out of the way and took in the screen. "The Kingdom of Thingol? Beleriand! How did you find out about that? Never mind. I won't let you do it, that's all. I won't! I'm making a citizen's arrest. And I'm confisticating this story!"   
  
She leaned over to press delete, but Mary in desperation jumped at her, knocking her fingers over just far enough to hit 'save'...   
  
A sudden, blinding light was followed by blackness. Distantly, Mary heard Rae's call, "Eru save the Silmarillion!"   
  
***   
  
Mary sniffed. Flowers. Flowers smelled pretty. She opened one eye. Flowers looked pretty, too. Flowers probably felt pretty, as well, but Mary was relatively sure that it wasn't a flower beneath her head. She shifted experimentally. Yeah, that was a rock.   
  
"Ow." She said, rolling over and laying her head down again, someplace gentler.   
  
"You didn't write very much, Mary. It was up to the continuum to get us here however it wanted, and it wasn't in a particularly good mood." That was Rae, who despite being both upside down and sideways in a particularly thorny bush managed to remain snarky. "I wonder why."   
  
Feeling the back of her head, which was bumpy but not bleeding, Mary stood and helped Rae out of the foliage.   
  
"So, um. What happened? Are we in the Kingdom of Thingol?"   
  
Rae looked around, for the first time taking in where she was. It was absolutely beautiful, enchanting, majestic - oh, there simply weren't words to describe it. At least not in this language. She had a rudimentary knowledge of Quenya, but knew that wouldn't help. Except for a brief period after the arrival of the Noldor, Quenya was either unknown or banned here.   
  
The city in the distance seemed elegant, rare peaks or towers jutting out from the forest. The trees seemed woven together, grown with the exact purpose of looking beautiful. And the fields looked pretty, and pretty harmless, except of course for where they had landed. She wished the continuum would stop blaming both of them. *She* hadn't done anything. But Rae was willing to bet they wouldn't find a thornbush anywhere else in Beleriand.   
  
"Beleriand," she mused aloud, and at Mary's strange glance she added, "That's the name of this place. Well, Doriath, actually. It's a part of Beleriand that's protected by the Girdle of Melian."   
  
"A girdle? What? What is that? No, wait. Isn't that something you put around your waist so you look thinner? Why would elves need that, they're already so pretty... like Legolas..."   
  
Rae groaned, exasperated. "It's magical. Now shut up."   
  
She looked around again, but a bit of her wonder was gone. Now she felt some guilt - after all, she had no right to intrude. Or worse, to allow Mary to do so. And this wasn't Rivendell, either, where rips and tears were commonplace. This place had an air of unbroached peace. She felt criminal.   
  
But what was she to do? Short of committing a murder-suicide she wasn't sure how to get out of the continuum. And that was a step she wasn't willing to take, not when so many things could go wrong. What if self-inserts lost something of themselves when they returned to the real world? Besides, she didn't think dying would be that pleasant.   
  
The sounds of music and laughter startled Rae from her musing. For a moment she listened, enchanted. That must be Luthien, Tinuviel, with a voice like a Nightengale and a face like a goddess...   
  
Panicked, Rae shoved Mary behind a bush and leaped down after her.   
  
"What are you *doing*?" Mary hissed.   
  
"What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm trying not to distroy the plot continuum. Which would certainly happen if these elves caught sight of *humans* walking around their kingdom? Now hide. Don't speak. Don't look, even."   
  
Despite her words, Rae risked a peek. She gasped in silent delight to see Luthien emerge from the forest, her step leisurely and light. Even her hair moved like she was dancing. For a moment, she stopped her singing, and called, "My dear Strongbow, however do you manage to lead my father's troops when you walk so slow? Certainly you must lag behind, and reach your battles once they're over!"   
  
In spite of herself Rae was disapointed that she could understand the language - she had been looking foward to a challenge. Then Luthien's words sunk in.   
  
"My dear Luthien, however do you manage to capture so many young hearts? Certainly you must open your mouth, and release their hearts with your cruel teasing?"   
  
Luthien laughed and took the arm of the elf warrior who strode into the clearing. Then she continued her singing, which became gradually softer as the distance back to the edge of the forest grew.   
  
Glancing at her companion, Rae realized Mary had been watching, too.   
  
"You cheater! You said we weren't allowed to see the elves!" Mary complained. But Rae only sighed and sank into the soft grasses, a dazed look on her face.   
  
"Rae?"   
  
"... Beleg Cuthalion!" she sighed again.   
  
"Rae?" Still no answer. "Whatever," Mary snapped, growing impatient. "I like my elves blond."   
  
This statement brought Rae back to her senses. "Um, Mary? Hate to break it to you, but Legolas has brown hair."   
  
"What?"   
  
"And he doesn't exist yet."   
  
"What?!?!" Mary howled, shattering eardrums and destroying propper punctuation. Rae shoved her back into the forest before anyone else heard, and before Beleg and Luthien could come back to investigate.   
  
***   
  
A little while later the two humans were wandering around the forest, for lack of anything better to do. Mary peppered Rae with questions, which pleased the elder girl immensely, at least at first. After all, Mary was finally showing some interest in book canon.   
  
"So, who was that girl? With your Beleg fellow?"   
  
"Princess Luthien - "   
  
"Princess!" Mary shouted. "But I'm the princess."   
  
"I can assure you, you're not anything of the sort."   
  
"But that's what I wrote!"   
  
Rae stared at her intently, considering. "Really? I don't know, then..."   
  
"Well, maybe I didn't get a chance to say that I wanted to be the princess. But that's what I was gonna write."   
  
"Tough luck," Rae muttered, and sat down. After a while, she realized Mary was being strangely quiet. Rae welcomed the change. Then Mary shouted, "Yes!"   
  
Rae jumped up as she felt the earth sway beneath her. Aghast, she stared at Mary, who seemed oblivious, holding something tightly in one hand and wiping sweat from her forehead with the other. "What is that, Mary?"   
  
Mary opened her hand to reveal a Kit-Kat bar. At the look of outrage on her companion's face, she said meekly, "What?"   
  
"How. Did. You. Get. That." Each word was punctuated by a stomp of the foot.   
  
"I just - er, I just sort of wished for it. Really hard. I'm hungry, you know."   
  
"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST - " Rae started, then stopped. "WHAT KIND OF A MORON WOULD - " she stopped again. Words could not convey her anger any more than they could describe Doriath. Very softly, she asked, "Why, in the name of all that's holy, would you think it's not okay to let elves see us but to introduce their world to junk food? And celophane? And all sorts of nasty chemicals that are in that chocalate?"   
  
"I don't know, I - " Mary looked contrite. "But I am hungry. And tired. Where are we going to get all the stuff we need?"   
  
She was right. They would have to enter the world of elves, as discretely as they could. Mary had long hair which she could use to cover her rounded ears, but Rae's was cut short and wouldn't hide a thing. She supposed they could settle for stealing a hat. She was willing to bet making new fashion statements would be less disruptive than Mary introducing any more Mars-bars products.   
  
They set off towards the city.   
  
***   
  
After several hours of walking the girls had teached the outskirts, in the form of a small town. Behind one of the dwellings was a rock, upon were stretched a few cloaks. Feeling decidedly Ungoliant-ish, Rae crept over to where they lay, trying to make no noise as she did so. Grabbing one of the cloaks, she pulled it on, flipping up the top to cover her ears. Then, taking another for Mary, she turned to leave and -   
  
"You must be the loudest elf I've ever come across in my entire life, and mind you, I was born right after Cuivienen. For what purpose are you taking my daughters' cloaks?"   
  
Rae gulped and slowly turned around. "I was, um, ah. Um. Ah."   
  
The elf woman's frown turned even deeper. "Answer me, girl. Are you mad?"  
  
"Um. Ah." Rae tried desperately to think of an excuse.   
  
"You are, aren't you?" The elf woman said, taken aback. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. Not that you can understand me, but, oh, I'm sorry. So many of us have lost bits of ourselves to the darkness. Body or mind. But we're protected now, by Melian, Eru bless her."   
  
As she talked the woman walked slowly closer, and despite Rae's tenseness she felt something like implicit trust. The elf ran a hand down her shoulder, comforting, and continued on.   
  
"You don't feel right, somehow. You feel different. Not evil, not like one of the dark one's elves, but different. Perhaps my lady should see you. Yes, I'll take you to her, that's what I'll do."   
  
Saying so, the woman led her into the house. Clutching the cloak tightly around her head and glancing back nervously to the forest where Mary waited, Rae followed her in.   
  
How can I understand what she's saying? Rae thought to herself. Maybe the continuum feels bad about landing me in a thorny bush? Or maybe the reason why all self-inserts understand the language is that an author writes in English. So it's, like, inherently understandable to us.   
  
This intelligent-sounding yet really quite nonsensical babbling occupied Rae from worrying about whether the woman was taking her to see more elves, what they would do when they saw her ears (or saw her try to sing, dance or fight for that matter - she hardly had elvish grace) and whether or not Mary was going to be all right in the woods. Or, more to the point, whether the woods would be all right with Mary in them.   
  
"Be productive," Rae muttered to herself, making sure she only mouthed the words. The elf woman was maybe ten feet away but Rae didn't doubt she could hear the slightest rush of breath.   
  
Be productive. Okay, what could she figure out by what she had seen? Where was she, for starters?   
  
She didn't know if she was anywhere near the King's halls, because they were underground. But she hadn't seen Luthien's tree scraping at the sky, so they weren't very close. Well, *when* was she? Luthien and Beleg were here, so the world was still relatively young. And she was betting the humans hadn't come yet, because otherwise the woman would have recognized her for what she was. When had humans awoken? Right, after the felling of the trees and the making of the sun...   
  
"Oh, you idiot!" Rae couldn't help herself from saying that out loud. The sun was shining! It must be during that brief period between the fall of the Noldor and the coming of men...   
  
The elf was staring at her, unmoving and curious. "So you aren't mad, then?" She slowly circled around Rae, her steps cautious. "Then what are you?"  
  
END PART ONE 


	2. Chapter Two

Fangirls In Beleriand Fangirls In Beleriand (Part 2) 

by Shauna (wind3213@hotmail.com) 

Summary: With the removal of the PPC, there's been a certain lack of nice, mean snarking. My attempt to make up for it. 

Disclaimers: All characters, unless indicated otherwise, are the property of the Tolkien estate. The Mary-Sues are mine, and that means I can torture them as much as I want. 

*** 

When Rae didn't come back from fetching the cloaks, Mary began to get worried. But Rae had ordered Mary, in her most menacing voice, not to move from her spot. So instead of going after her, Mary sat down and began to brush her hair. This occupied her for a while, as it seemed her hair was both longer and more lustrous than before. Even that eventually got boring. 

So Mary tucked her comb back into her pocket and decided to look around. She followed Rae's path to the small and homely house, and peeked through the window. 

Rae stood in the middle of the room, looking like she was about to faint, throw up or run away, or possibly all of those things at once. An elf walked around her, eyes narrowed, lips stretched downwards into a frown. As she spoke, a third person walked into the room, Luthien, the girl from before. The other elf bowed, and after a moment Rae did, too. 

"What creature are you to invade my father's realm?" Luthien said, her brows deepening in suspicion. "Are you an emissary of the dark lord? I sense some evil about you." 

"No, not evil," Rae offered. 

"How did you get through the girdle?" Luthien demanded. 

"Well, uh, I - " 

"Hey, everyone!" Mary said brightly, stepping into the room. All three of them turned to look at her, stunned. Then the elf woman dropped to one knee. 

"Surely this is an elven princess!" the woman gasped. At that ridiculous statement, Rae gasped as well. 

"That's right!" Mary said proudly, walking to stand by Rae. "So would you stop yelling at my friend?" 

"I'm so sorry," Luthien said, humbled. 

"I don't get it," Rae whispered to Mary. "She thinks I'm some sort of wild beast or crazy elf, but you walk in here smelling just as bad as I do, and with the same ears no less, and it's like you're the fourth Silmaril. I just don't get it." 

Luthien offered her arm to Mary. "Would you like to come meet my father and my mother?" 

"Oooo, goody!" Mary exclaimed. "You're a princess, right? So he's a king!" 

Still a bit shocked, and a lot more annoyed, Rae followed the two of them out the door. 

*** 

Rae walked along the grass, with Beleg beside her. It had been several days since they'd come to Beleriand, and little seemed to be happening. She had gathered some information about what time it was - Galadriel graced the king's court, as Daeron did - but that did little to help besides remind her how far away she was from where she wanted to be. 

Except... she wasn't sure she wanted to be anywhere else besides roaming at Beleg Cuthalion's side. 

Beleg had taken pity on the strange, ugly girl. Few would speak to her in private, let alone in public, but Beleg did not worry for his reputation. Neither did Luthien, who was kind to Rae when their paths crossed, but she did not find the girl interesting and so did not seek her out. 

To Rae's delight, Beleg had taken her as a confidante, seeming to sense that she knew him intimately even if she took pains not to say so. He talked to her of the contradictions of battle, of fighting to death for life. He talked to her of the loneliness of the ages, of feeling as though he waited for something that he did not understand. He talked to her of these strange whisperings coming out of the mountains, from the exiled ones, of a new race... a race of men. What did she think they would be like? 

When he told her of the rumors she knew that her time was running short. Even though it would be long before men came into Doriath, soon the elves would know what they were like, and thus that she and Mary were of them. 

Mary, for her part, was the belle of Beleriand, ever visited by entranced suitors although always kept beneath Melian's wary gaze. Rae didn't quite understand it all - weren't elves supposed to appreciate, well, intelligence? Wisdom? Wit? How come Mary was treated like she was all that and a pack of lembas, and Rae was tossed aside? 

It was the hair. It had to be the hair. Rae grimaced - she liked her own hair, it was comfortable and sort of neo-punk, but long, shiny hair was the elven standard of beauty and hers did sort of stick out. Or stick up. Well, it was starting to grow, and wasn't nearly as sharp and pointy as it used to be. 

And maybe it was also that even if Rae had hit the 'save' button, Mary was the one that wrote enough to bring them here. Rae, however unintentionally, was just a tag-along. 

Rae glanced up at Beleg, already several strides ahead of her and not looking back, not waiting for her, the tag-along, the little girl he had taken pity on. She knew who he was really waiting for. Turin. 

The stab of fear reached her heart. 

"Rae?" said a voice from behind her, with but a hesitation over the abrupt name, a short beat in a calm melody. "Your thoughts trouble me." 

Rae, startled, spun around, and a few yards ahead of her Beleg also turned back. Facing Galadriel she said, gaurded, "What do you know of my thoughts?" 

"More than you would have me speak of, especially in front of he that you fear for so." This last she said so quietly that even Beleg could not catch it, so quietly it seemed that she spoke directly in Rae's mind. 

"Did Melian speak to you?" Rae demanded when they were alone. The farsighted Maia had known right away that they were neither dark creatures or true elves, but she had kept the knowledge from others, probably on Mary's account. 

A frown passed over Galadriel's face at being spoken to in such a manner, although Rae knew for a fact that wheneve Mary ordered the Noldorin princess around it was taken as her due. 

"No, but sometimes my mind passes to you and I sense that you fear for his future even as I do." 

"Wait a sec," Rae spluttered, forgetting not to use modern American slang. "You know about his future and you're not doing anything?" 

"Neither are you," Galadriel pointed out. 

"Yeah, but I'm - " Rae cut herself off. "You still haven't answered why." 

"If I tried to avert every fell prophecy I've had, there would not be a life left untouched by me. Besides, sometimes sadness is the propper way of things." 

Rae shook her head, tears beginning to sting in her eyes. She glared in the general direction of the display where Glaurang was kept. "I could take that sword. I could throw it into the ocean before it can do its harm." 

Galadriel, trying to hide her distaste, reached out and stroked Rae's spiky hair. "Your heart is good, child, but it will lead you wrong. It will lead far worser things to this land ere it stops beating, if you do not chose to leave." 

"You think I should leave?" Rae asked Galadriel. 

"No," the wise elf replied, "I do not think it. I know it." 

*** 

Rae found Mary singing N'Sync songs to an entranced Daeron. Surveying the sickening scene, Rae thought that if Mary moved on to Brittney Spears she would have to kill herself, and maybe that would solve the problem nicely. 

She pulled Mary away, trying to ignore Daeron's lovestruck protestations. 

"What do you think you're doing to him?" 

Mary giggled. "I think he has a crush on me." 

"Are you insane?" 

"No, just pretty!" Mary replied. "Oh, it's nothing serious! He'll get over it when I break his heart." 

"Elves love once," Rae said through gritted teeth. "Twice, if they're a high king. If you break Daeron's heart you'll quite literally kill him. And if you break Daeron's heart, I'll quite literally kill you." 

"Geez, what's the big deal?" 

"If Daeron dies, he won't be able to betray Beren and Luthien to Thingol. And if that doesn't happen, Beren won't be forced to get a Silmaril and Finrod won't die helping him and Beren won't die fighting that wolf and Luthien won't die out of grief for him - " 

"Wait, so all this not happening is a *bad* thing?" 

" - hang on a second, I'm not done yet. And they won't come back and have Dior and he won't have Elwing and Elwing won't marry Earendil and they won't get the Valar to come back and destroy Morgoth and then Morgoth will kill everybody. There we go. Now do you see why that's a bad thing?" Rae seemed quite impressed with herself. 

"Who's Morgoth?" Mary asked. 

"The point is, we've got to go." 

"But I want to stay!" 

"Mary! We aren't staying here. We need to leave. Galadriel said so. Melian said so. I'm sure there are thousands of readers out there who agree! Okay, maybe only three or four readers, but doubtless they're keeping their fist clenched above the keyboard, trying to supress their rage at what we're doing here. And for that matter, what the hell *are* you doing here?" 

"I'm just trying to set Luthien up with Beleg. They're perfect for eachother." 

"No, they're not," Rae growled, beginning - just beginning - to get impatient. 

"You're just saying that because you want Beleg all to yourself, you dumb freak." 

"I'm saying it because I know her future and it isn't with him! Her story was in the poem that started this whole thing! For crying out loud - " and Rae sounded as though she might start, "you'd think you would have read at least that! And I might be a freak but you'd better watch who you call dumb." 

"Well," Mary wheedled, "didn't you say we had to be careful not to change the future?" 

"Yes," Rae ground out. 

"So we can change it. Its just a bad idea!" Mary smiled at this seemingly impenetrable logic. "So Luthien and Beleg can get together - you know she said at our slumber party a few nights ago - " 

"A slumber party?" Rae asked, aghast. "You forced Luthien Tinuviel, fairest of all elves, daughter of an Ainu and an Elven king, to go to a slumber party? I bet you ordered pizza." 

"Pineapple pizza," Mary replied. "Anyway, she said she's had a crush on him for such a long time, and that when we grow up and Legolas is, you know, born, we can have a double wedding!" Mary paused. "Rae? Rae?" 

There was no answer besides the *thump, thump* of a head being thrown forcefully and repeatedly into a tree. When the banging stopped, she asked again, "Rae?" 

Rae had decided to ignore her for the moment, rubbing a hand on her forehead to slow the bleeding. She needed to find a way out of this. 

'Come on, Rae, think. Think! What would Jay and Acacia do?' Rae flinched as images flashed into her mind of being used as target practice by Eol, his poisoned spears and arrows lodging painfully in her chest. She needed to remember that anything that she used on Mary, she'd have to use on herself. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to the girl. 

"Where were we?" Rae asked. 

Mary smiled, and an even stupider look than usual crossed her face. "Legolas." 

"Legolas," Rae shouted. "Oh, for Iluvatar's sake, you're not done with that yet?" 

"I," Mary replied proudly, "am loyal. I am waiting for him. Even if it takes all the time in the world." 

"Of course!" Rae gasped aloud. Why hadn't she thought of this before? They weren't in a different place, just a different time. After all, didn't the riders of Rohan eventually become the Anglo-saxons? And everything else became myth. So they didn't really need to die to leave, just to - "Mary, I need you to close your eyes and will time forward." 

"Why?" 

"To get back to the future, of course." 

"Back to the Future? I don't want to leave this fandom. Besides, Michael J. Fox isn't as cute as Orli Bloom is." 

Rae's eyes lit up. "Legolas is in the future!" 

"Really?" Mary cried. She grabbed Rae's hand and hopped up and down excitedly. "Let's go!" 

"Wait a second," Rae said, pulling her hand away, "I have to say goodbye to - " 

"Beleg?" Mary supplied, actually pulling off a smirk. Rae hadn't thought it was possible, but she'd actually been outsnarked. By Mary, no less. It was this more than anything else that made her decision for her. 

"No," Rae replied, shoving down the lump in her throat and ignoring the painful beating of her heart. She also resisted the temptation to compare herself to Arwen, though only because the elf hadn't been born yet and was actually the object of her separated beloved's affection, and not for the more obvious reason that it was in bad taste. "No. Let's go." 

*** 

[A/N Thank you AnyAmy. I am infinitely relieved to hear that the PPC is not lost - unfortunately Rae does not know this. So she shall continue mourning them and doing her best not to screw things up too badly.] 


End file.
